A Place in the Sun

The Hotter’n Hell Hundred rolls riders through one of the bleakest, most godforsaken landscapes imaginable—at a time of year when temperatures regularly top 100 degrees. Why on earth do so many people want to ride it?

THIS IS THE SUN: It first appears on this day at 6:55 a.m., a few timid rays of light flickering across the vast horizon. From this perspective, in this small hour, it doesn’t seem particularly menacing. But we are in Wichita Falls, a modest town situated at the eastern edge of the Texas panhandle where extreme heat is essentially a point of civic pride, and it’s already hot. The digital letters of a bank sign read 79 degrees. The humid air feels like a warm sponge against my skin.

I’m straddling my bike on a bridge above the rusty-brown Wichita River. In front of me, the start-line banner for the Hotter’n Hell Hundred flutters in a light wind. Behind me, 13,573 helmet-clad cyclists tentatively wait for the start of the largest single-day century ride in the country (and possibly the world). The most ambitious among them congregate near the start line in chain-link corrals, sectioned off by average speed. Beyond them, a mass of bodies and bicycles stretches a mile back toward downtown’s low-slung skyscrapers and spills out into adjoining side streets.

I’d weaseled my way up through the crowd in search of the event’s executive director, Chip Filer, whom I know from email correspondence. I reach him a few minutes before a V-formation of Air Force prop planes soars low across the luminescent, overcast sky. “Gives me goose bumps every time,” Chip says. Nearby, a giant man with one wild eye—who tells me his name is Tree Wood—rises from his metal folding chair. He is a member of the Red River Renegades reenactment group. And now, for the 31st time, he will assist in the annual firing of a wagon-wheel-mounted frontier-era cannon.

“Plug your ears,” Filer tells me. Flames shoot from the cannon’s mouth. Bells ring through the waxy tips of my fingers. A dozen men with the acronym FOG (Fast Old Guys) printed on their jerseys surge forward on their carbon-fiber bicycles, forming the crest of an immense rolling wave that carries me away from Filer.

As a naturalized Texan born into a bicycling family, I’ve crossed the start line here nearly a dozen times before. First as a preteen rally rider on my mom’s old Italian road bike. Then, years later, as part of an elite racing team. And today, as a writer. Specifically, I’m here to try to make sense of this ride’s perplexing, paradoxical popularity.

If you don’t ride a bicycle long distances, you’re highly unlikely to think of Wichita Falls as a place you’d choose to go visit. Even locals don’t deny that. There are no mountains and few sizable hills. Large trees exist only sparingly, and from mid-May to mid-September, when high temps regularly exceed 100 degrees, shade is in painfully short supply. And yes, it gets hot. In 2011, officials recorded a course-record high of 109. Riders battle dehydration. The combination of heat and exertion causes some to hallucinate. Others experience heart trouble. Indeed, because of the heat, the standards for safety get stretched necessarily well beyond what they might normally be in a place that runs rides in more temperate climates. In 1998, the ride’s medical director reported, “The safety record at the Hotter’n Hell is exemplary. Out of more than 120,000 riders [since the ride’s inception], only five deaths occurred.”

Photo: Sandy Carson

Yet somehow, year after year, the Hotter’n Hell Hundred sets record numbers for participation. So as I pedal out alongside the barbed-wire fences and prickly pear cactus and gnarled mesquite trees, knowing that as this sun ascends it will bake the mostly barren earth here into an interminable, hazy inferno—I ask for the first of what will be many times that day: Why?

TO UNDERSTAND WHY so many people feel compelled to ride 100 miles in 100-degree heat, it’s instructive to first ponder the early settlers of Wichita Falls. The land speculator who originally acquired the rights to the area, John A. Scott of Mississippi, packed the deeds away and subsequently forgot he owned them. Years later, Scott’s heirs rediscovered the certificates to the forsaken landscape, and in 1882 helped found Wichita Falls. Unfortunately, the namesake falls soon washed away during a flood. Despite the inhospitable climate and regular Indian attacks, the town’s determined pioneers—seemingly gaining strength from the idea that they were doing something really hard, but they were all in it together—transformed Wichita Falls into a modest railway stop and cattle-ranching hub.

Then, in the early 1900s, oil bubbled up from the brushy plains. The population exploded. Even now, years after the black gold dried up, hundreds of working derricks still dot the countryside and even occupy the parking lots of local apartment complexes. For the last half century, supported by various industries, the population has consistently hovered at around 100,000. The idea to host a century came about in 1982, while organizers were brainstorming an event for the centennial celebration. The town initially hired a New York marketing firm, which—perhaps deciding it was too hot to do much else—proposed holding a rocking-chair marathon. The New Yorkers were promptly fired. Instead, the town’s postmaster, Roby Christie, suggested putting on a 100-mile bike ride. Christie, a member of the town’s recently formed cycling club, didn’t actually know anyone who’d ridden that far. But everyone agreed: A challenge of this scale, a centennial century, would reflect the grit and tenacity of Wichita Falls’s forebears. One question remained: “When will we hold the ride?” committee member Mark Davis asked.

“The end of August,” Roby said.

“It’s going to be hotter’n hell!” Davis replied.

Photo: Sandy Carson

Photo: Sandy Carson

IN THE EVENING prior to the 2012 start, I met Rob Pluta. An audiologist from Corpus Christi, Pluta was pitching a tent on a bed of mulch in the concrete island of a parking lot near my car. (This is not an uncommon sight; hotel rooms run $250 a night that weekend, with a two-night minimum.) Rob had driven 10 hours to ride Hotter’n Hell, which he called “the granddaddy of them all.” He divulged that growing up, he was the fat kid—the last one picked for recess activities. But the following morning, he planned to wake to the sound of tires being pumped and bike cleats clicking in. He would pull his spandex jersey over his svelte physique without a hint of shame, and he would see how far and fast he could ride in the most unforgiving elements Texas could offer.

While Rob is continuing his reinvention, I am pursuing my own agenda. Thirty miles after the firing of the frontier-era cannon, I say goodbye to the hard-charging 25-mph average speed of the lead pack and pull over at rest stop number three. “May I hold your bike?” asks one of the half-dozen teenage volunteers, who are acting as human bicycle racks.

“Why…yes,” I answer, already stumbling toward the tubs of energy bars, the trays of cream-filled cookies, the plastic baggies of multi-colored gummy bears.

“Where’re you from?” asks a woman pouring ice-cold blue Gatorade into another rider’s bottle. “Houston? Well, you brought the humidity up with you from the Gulf, didn’t you?” she teases. The ride’s volunteer army of more than 4,800 people, many of whom have pitched in to help run Hotter’n Hell for decades, will dispense as many as 20,000 bananas, 8,000 pickles, and 70,000 pounds of ice. In the absence of coastal breezes or mountaintop vistas, these volunteers lift riders’ morale, dispensing cheer and nourishing sugary goodness.

I ride on feeling refreshed, a half-empty bag of gummy bears hanging out of my jersey pocket.

THIS IS THE SUN: At 9:30 a.m., it’s now eye-level and blinding, unleashing its pure, unrelenting heat. I sail along for the next 20 or so miles, cradled by a comforting tailwind. With about 25 miles left, the century, metric-century, and half-century ride routes converge into one, creating a kaleidoscope of cyclists.

Photo: Sandy Carson

I see a recumbent outfitted with an aerodynamic yellow shell that makes it look like a rolling banana. I see throngs of people riding to raise money and awareness for causes: cancer, MS, and diabetes. I see a man pedaling 100 miles with only his arms, and a group of women costumed as Catholic schoolgirls with plaid skirts, pigtails, and knee-high socks. I see a preteen boy riding a tandem with his dad. And in him, I see myself 20 years ago, incessantly chatting to my own heavily panting dad and impatiently awaiting the next cookie stop.

Eventually I see that one person has been drafting off me for the past quarter hour. He is about my age, fit, Asian, and riding a nice BMC road bike.

I turn to him, and I say, “Hello.”

“I’m Shim,” he replies.

“Shim?”

“Shim,” he says. Shim is from South Korea, and stationed at an Air Force base in Lawton, Oklahoma, where he is undergoing artillery training. He woke up at 4 a.m. to make the start of the ride.

“Why?” I ask.

Shim has a limited grasp of English (although it's better than my nonexistant Korean). What he says is, “So many people”—and waves his hand toward the vast herd of cyclists spread across the road ahead of us. I let it drop.

Shim and I visit nearly every rest stop over the final leg of the ride. At number seven, someone hands Shim a tiny white Dixie cup full of green fluid. “Pickle juice,” I tell him, a North Texas staple endorsed by Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten as an all-natural sports drink. Clearly, Shim doesn’t understand. He downs the juice like a swig of Jim Beam. Then he scrunches his face, gags, hurls the cup into a nearby trashcan, and stomps off. Not long after, Shim discovers snow cones drowned in sugary red syrup, which he finds just as novel but much tastier.

In the town of Burkburnett, only a mile from the muddy shores of the Red River and the Oklahoma border, Shim and I pull up to a themed rest stop, dubbed Margaritaville. We are greeted by a group of Midwestern State University sorority girls wearing Hawaiian leis and holding trays of fresh orange slices. (The ride’s entry fees help fund cycling scholarships for the Wichita Falls-based university.) I photograph Shim standing in front of a faux beach, with palm trees and a kiddie pool, as Jimmy Buffett songs blare in the background. We wipe our faces with cool towelettes and return to our bikes.

Photo: Sandy Carson

As we turn south onto a 10-mile stretch of service road alongside Interstate 44, a head wind like God’s blow-dryer smacks me in the face.

“This is going to suck,” I say to Shim.

“I don’t understand this word, suck?”

“You will,” I tell him.

Photo: Sandy Carson

THIS IS THE SUN: Approaching noon, it’s a fierce, glowing orb that hovers high in the clear blue sky amid a scattering of wispy, white clouds—the world’s biggest heat lamp. The temperature is 93 degrees, and the hottest part of the day is yet to come. Gusts of wind exceed 25 mph.

A flatbed trailer operating as a sag wagon rumbles past Shim and me, filled with the sad faces of defeated cyclists. Weary riders congregate at an I-44 rest stop under the blessed shade of a grove of live oaks and spray their salt-encrusted faces with the precious few ounces remaining in their water bottles. Shim and I swap pulls into the unforgiving headwind, intermittently dropping each other as our legs start to give way. After an eternal 45 minutes, we veer left onto Missile Road, headed toward Sheppard Air Force Base and the final few miles.

The wind recedes and our moods brighten. Cyclists pose in front of the World War II bombers on display, grinning broadly. Shim and I spin softly, soaking in the ride’s end. Then, ahead, a tunnel of uniformed airmen appears. They’re lining both sides of the road, cheering, clapping, and offering up high fives. Shim screams, “IANNN!” (but pronouncing it YAN), and hands me his camera. He sprints through the gauntlet of soldiers as if he’s winning the final, fan-lined meters of a Tour de France climb, slapping hands, screaming.

At the finish, a volunteer drapes a medal around my neck, one of the 14,000 ordered. I say good-bye to Shim and contemplate retreating to my comfortable accommodations with local residents Linda and Don Knox, who have opened their home and hearts to Hotter’n Hell riders for years. But instead I order one of the 36-ounce beers I see other cyclists sipping and listen to the Kris Lager Band, a Black Keys-esque blues-rock act performing at the hospitality tent.

Eventually I find the bottom of my beer cup, and again begin to contemplate the question of why. What’s behind this ride’s uncanny allure?

I overhear one finisher suggest they rename the event Windier’n Hell. Another finisher refers to the current temp of 96 as “cool” compared to last year’s nearly 110-degree heat. I hear groans, and laughter. A woman who is wobbling as she walks alongside her bicycle proudly says, “I earned this medal.” I think about my dad, and how he instilled in me a love for cycling, even in Texas heat.

Everyone is nodding and smiling and exchanging exhausted, knowing looks. I remembered what Shim said: So many people. Of course. He wasn’t complaining about the crowds—he was drawn to them, to the idea of being part of something bigger, a shared experience.

The popularity of Hotter’n Hell is part of what makes it so popular. And for many people this ride is their Everest, and the volunteers are their Sherpas. It's a journey entirely dependent on community. There's no way this many people could do this alone. The rock band's guitarist jams along with the bassist. I slam my empty beer upon the table. All these people, they draw strength from the notion that they are doing something really hard, but they are all in it together. Wonder where they got that idea.